‘Yeah. Mind you, Shaun wasn’t there a lot of the time. Bunking off.’

  Tina gave a faint smile. ‘Yeah. That’s Shaun.’

  ‘In those days the teachers used to bawl kids out when they came back into school. So, guess what, they went bunking off again. It was like smacking a runaway puppy when it decides to come back to you.’

  Tina took another swig of wine. Georgie could see that she was beginning to relax.

  ‘He had a bad time when he was a kid,’ Tina said. ‘His mum was a slapper; she went through men like a hot knife through butter. But his gran was nice.’

  ‘There’s always a silver lining,’ Georgie observed, wetting her lips with the wine. She wanted to stay sober and she certainly didn’t want getting caught drink driving.

  ‘It was her house where the police got him,’ Tina said looking thoughtful. ‘It wasn’t me who shopped him, you know. I never told the police, though I was pretty sure where he was. The police found out somehow.’

  ‘Well, sometimes they get things right,’ Georgie said with a wry grin.

  ‘I hope he doesn’t think I was the one that gave the police the nod.’

  ‘I’ll bet he doesn’t.’ Georgie said. ‘He used to be a loyal type, Shaunie. A bit of a delinquent but not nasty, not cruel.’

  ‘No, that’s right,’ Tina said. Her features registered sadness. She drained her wine. Georgie poured her another glass.

  ‘Have you been to see him?’

  Alarm came into Tina’s eyes. ‘No.’

  ‘Do you miss him?’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Tina. ‘Yeah, I do.’ She stared down into her wine. ‘He’s been having a bad time.’

  ‘You can say that again,’ Georgie agreed.

  ‘Not just all this with the police. His gran died a few weeks back. He was gutted. He cried, he really cried.’

  ‘That’s sad,’ Georgie’s mind began ticking fast. ‘You don’t believe he killed Moira Farrell do you?’ she said, soft and slow.

  ‘No.’

  ‘You gave him an alibi.’

  ‘Yeah. But the police don’t care a jot about that. They think I’m a waste of space. A scrote’s tart. They think I’d say anything to get him off and keep a quiet life for myself.’

  ‘Do you think Shaun’s a “scrote”?’ Georgie asked.

  Tina looked up. Her pale cheeks were becoming pink from drinking the wine. ‘No,’ she said. ‘I don’t.’

  ‘And was he here with you when Moira Farrell was killed?’

  There was no hesitation. ‘Yes, he was.’

  ‘Would you stand up and say that in court?’

  A tiny pause. ‘Yes!’

  ‘So why aren’t you speaking up for him, Tina?’ Georgie asked.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Why aren’t you jumping up and down and making a fuss about his being held for questioning?’

  Tina gaped at her questioner and placed the tip of her thumbnail between her front teeth. ‘They wouldn’t take any notice of me.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I told you, they don’t rate me.’

  ‘I don’t think that’s true, Tina. In fact I think they’d start taking a lot of notice of you if you did a bit of jumping up and down and standing by your man.’

  Tina looked baffled, but definitely interested.

  ‘I’ll help you,’ Georgie said.

  ‘How?’

  ‘First off, I’ll write an article about you and him. About how you’re determined to stand by him. How you know he didn’t do it, and how the police have sidelined you and chosen to ignore your vital evidence. Because, you see, Tina, what you say is proof that Shaun isn’t the man the police need to charge as he was here with you at the time Moira Farrell was murdered. End of story.’

  ‘Is it as simple as that?’ Tina asked in wonder.

  ‘Yes,’ Georgie said, happy to lie when necessity demanded.

  ‘I’ll be in the newspaper?’ Tina said, like a child being offered an unexpected present.

  ‘Yep, and I’ll get one of our photographers to come round to your work first thing tomorrow morning and take a picture. So get your best kit on.’ Pleased with Tina’s reaction, Georgie pressed on, ‘And when the article’s published we’ll go to the police station together and talk to the big boss in charge.’

  ‘But what if they won’t let him go?’ Tina asked, wondering through the fuzz of the wine what she’d be feeling like if they did let him go.

  ‘They will,’ said Georgie. ‘And after that I’ve got something rather good up my sleeve to make sure the police won’t be bothering him again.’

  Tina allowed herself to be convinced.

  Georgie gathered her gear together and prepared to make a move. Her calculating mind threw up one final idea to leave Tina with. ‘So Shaun’s gran had her own house, did she?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Well then, if she remembered him in her will, your Shaunie might be coming into a bit of money, mightn’t he?’ She winced slightly as she stepped down into the squelch of the hallway.

  ‘I suppose so,’ Tina said, as though the idea hadn’t occurred to her.

  ‘You could get this place all done up,’ Georgie ventured cheerily, being careful where she placed her feet.

  ‘Yeah.’ Tina was looking decidedly wistful now, quite the devoted girlfriend and soul mate. ‘Yeah, that would be cool.’

  Georgie sat in her car for a few moments, and allowed herself a little gloating. She reckoned she had the makings of a good article – Agony of girlfriend as local man faces murder charge. Front page stuff. She imagined standing up to the editor, persuading, arguing, wheedling. He’d say he couldn’t promise the front page. Other stories might break. Already her article would have knocked a fatal car crash and the rape of a local teacher to the inside, etc, etc. But Georgie knew she could do a fantastic piece. And Tina was just the sort of downtrodden low self-esteem girl who would love the exposure and then playing the noble heroine standing by her man. And she’d photograph well. Moreover there was plenty more up Georgie’s sleeve to be toying with if Shaun got out.

  And all for the price of half a bottle of Pinot Grigio.

  Swift drove along the early morning streets, on his way to see Rajesh Patel at his house. It was snowing once again, but not settling: the roads gleamed black against the greying snow heaped at the edge of the pavements. During the time Swift had been planning a slot when he could see Patel once more, the professor had telephoned him with a request of his own for a talk. Swift did not know what agenda Patel had in mind but he knew by now that unless Patel, or someone else, produced some vital new evidence it was more or less certain they would have to release Shaun Busfield within the next couple of hours. Which, on the whole, he judged was probably justified, being privately inclined to believe that Busfield had not killed Moira, despite the evidence supplied by the bloodstained trainers in the garden.

  As he drove, thoughts of Naomi rose to the forefront of his mind temporarily pushing the Farrell case on to the back burner. In the past two days he had had more than one phone call from Cat, both indicating that Naomi was doing fine, and, from what he could tell, indicating that Cat and Naomi had formed some kind of relationship. He was interested in how much the idea of it pleased him. His feelings towards Cat involved both warmth and trust, and the notion that she might be offering Naomi a degree of friendship and protection was nothing but welcome.

  He recalled that before Naomi was born his and Kate’s friends had kept teasing them about sleepless nights and loss of freedom and how their lives were never going to the same. What they hadn’t mentioned was how knocked out they would be by how much they’d love her right from the word go. How precious she would be. And after that there was always the fear of things going wrong for her – just ordinary things, falling off a slide, contracting some awful illness, being bullied, getting in the way of a car when crossing the road. All the usual. And then Kate got killed and the worry was how he would ever manage to make the loss up to her. Which, of course, he could never do.

  And now, totally unexpectedly, someone was sharing that concern, easing the load.

  As he parked his car at the bottom of Rajesh Patel’s drive, the professor opened the door and stood waiting for him. He extended his hand as though Swift were a welcome visitor, then invited him to sit in the warmth of the kitchen. ‘Can I offer you some refreshment, Chief Inspector?’

  Swift shook his head.

  Patel sat down. ‘I went to see James Anderson yesterday. I don’t know if you’re aware.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I challenged him about having an affair with Moira. And he admitted it. And I told him about the two babies, that only one of them carried my DNA.’

  He spoke with steady clarity and a reasonableness quite remarkable for a man who had suffered such emotional pain during the last few days. Swift reckoned Anderson would have been seriously rattled if Patel had treated him to all this self-composure, which must surely be underlain by some grave, deep antipathy and menace.

  ‘Did he admit he could be the father of the other baby?’

  ‘Yes. And I happen to know that he’s currently having an affair with one of the sisters on the gynaecology ward. I have one or two students who are happy to act as moles.’

  ‘I see.’ Swift looked into the other man’s face. ‘Professor Patel, what else do you know?’

  Patel sighed. ‘Nothing that’s going to help you find Moira’s killer. That’s if this man you’re holding turns out to be a red herring.’

  ‘Did you really not know about Moira’s pregnancy?’ Swift asked.

  ‘I’m afraid I didn’t, and that has been causing me a good deal of distress, that I should have been so lacking in perception.’

  ‘Was there something else? Some other worry regarding Moira which distracted you?’

  Patel offered a fleeting regretful smile. ‘I was worried that she was going to destroy her career by making a complaint to the hospital management about Adrian Cavanagh. A complaint of professional incompetence. She’d witnessed it first hand on several occasions. She’d seen patients suffer, she’d seen one or two die. And she was determined to do something about it.’

  ‘But you didn’t want her to complain?’

  ‘I knew it would be fruitless and I feared it might even destroy her career. Management don’t like to go public regarding incompetence in their consultants, it reflects so badly on hospital performance targets. And whistle blowers are simply not to be tolerated, they get ostracized; they even get suspended. And after that they don’t get new jobs.’

  ‘So the bodies are swept under the carpet?’

  ‘That more or less describes it.’

  ‘Did you and Moira argue about this?’

  ‘Oh yes. On more than one occasion. And notably on the evening before she died. It upset us both greatly. I warned her she was going to commit professional suicide by speaking out.’ He stared fixedly at Swift and for a moment it seemed that a confession was forthcoming. Swift skimmed through the possibilities: Patel had been driven to a point of utter frustration, had snapped, had dealt his wife one fatal stab. Had somehow managed to frame Shaun Busfield.

  ‘The memory of that argument is unbelievably raw,’ Patel said. ‘And through the next day my feelings veered between anger and regret. Moira and I hardly ever rowed. We were contained, private, civilized people.’ There was a long pause. ‘And when I got home it was too late to tell her I was sorry.’

  Swift sat motionless and silent.

  ‘I didn’t kill her,’ Patel said softly. ‘That is one act I don’t have to agonize about.’

  Swift took in and released a long breath. ‘Professor Patel, is there anything, anything at all concerning Moira’s death that you haven’t mentioned before.’

  ‘No. I’ve come to the sad conclusion that Moira and I were leading very separate lives. That I knew so little about what she was thinking and feeling. That I’ve just been wrapped up in myself and my work and all the various preoccupations we humans burden ourselves with.’

  ‘It looks as though we shall have to release Shaun Busfield,’ Swift said gently. ‘The evidence we have is not strong enough to make a case that will stand up in court. I’m sorry.’

  Patel shook his head. ‘Better to release a man if there is doubt. Better to do that than incarcerate someone who is innocent. I’m not one who takes the view that catching a murderer brings some kind of relief or satisfaction to the ones left behind. The deed is done. The loved one is lost. That is the life sentence all of us who grieve share. For me nothing can soften the brutality of that sentence.’

  Swift rose to his feet. ‘If anything comes to mind, Professor Patel …’ he said.

  Patel got up. ‘Yes, of course.’ He led Swift to the door. ‘I’m thinking of taking a break from work,’ he said. ‘Maybe a few days in the Lake District. You have my mobile number.’

  He stood in the doorway waiting whilst Swift got in his car. A very civilized man felled with grief.

  Georgie Tyson’s article hit the streets around 2.30 in the afternoon. It had made the front page, and the picture of Tina staring at the camera with her carefully made-up eyes wistful and vulnerable made Georgie hug herself with glee. Even better there had been several requests from the nationals to run the story. The editor had gone so far as to offer congratulations.

  Georgie collected Tina from her work and drove her to the station.

  Tina was bemused with the attention the young journalist was giving her; half elated, half scared stiff. And whilst she was worried about all kind of things to do with Shaun, she was even more worried about pissing off her boss by asking to nip out of work without due reason or warning.

  ‘Hey! Lighten up,’ Georgie told her as they waited for Detective Chief Inspector Swift to collect them from the front desk.

  ‘I’m a worrier,’ Tina said, sticking a nail in her mouth, then stoically resisting gnawing at it. She laid her hands out flat on her knees.

  ‘Great nails,’ Georgie told, her eyeing the bright pink ovals with a strip of silver down the middle of each one. Did you do them yourself?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Look, stop fretting. Everything’s going to work out fine. Just remember you’re on the front page of the local rag. You’re a celeb already. And we’re going to get Shaunie out of here.’

  Tina swallowed hard as Swift appeared at the door of his office. She was well practised at defending herself, but found it hard to know how to behave when she was with someone who obviously thought they were on the attack. There was something worryingly compelling about Georgie Tyson – Tina was slightly in fear of her and on the other hand anxious not to let her down.

  Seated in Swift’s office Tina noticed that he was taller and thinner than she remembered, and in the light from the window behind his desk she could see that he was a natural redhead, his hair a full rich auburn you couldn’t get out of a bottle even in these days of advanced colour technology.

  He sat quietly behind his desk, his expression neutral, neither friendly nor intimidating.

  ‘Have you seen today’s Echo?’ Georgie asked him.

  He nodded.

  ‘Tina wants to know why you’ve had Shaun banged up when she’s given him an alibi for the time of Moira Farrell’s murder.’

  ‘We have to investigate all of the evidence we find,’ Swift told her calmly.

  ‘What evidence?’ Georgie asked with a degree of challenge. She waited, holding her breath, desperate to know what evidence they had. What juicy nuggets of information there might be which she could work into a new article.’

  ‘Miss Tyson,’ Swift said evenly, ‘you know very well I’m not going to tell you. When the time is right we shall give out information through our press officer.’

  Georgie looked at Tina, wanting to pass on the baton of questioning, but the other woman sat in frozen silence.

  ‘Why won’t you believe Tina’s alibi for Shaun?’ Georgie demanded.

  ‘I didn’t say we didn’t believe it.’

  ‘Well it’s obvious you don’t otherwise you wouldn’t have locked him up. Tina told the truth and she’s prepared to stand up in court and say so.’

  Swift nodded his acknowledgement of this intention.

  ‘Tina’s come to demand that you release Shaun as soon as possible,’ Georgie said, having an uneasy feeling the interview wasn’t going as she had hoped.

  Ignoring Georgie, Swift turned to Tina. ‘Is there anything you’d like to say?’ he asked in even tones.

  ‘I did tell the truth,’ Tina said.

  ‘Just remind me what you told us that morning we came to arrest Shaun,’ he said gently.

  ‘The morning you let him slip through your fingers!’ Georgie said, unstoppable.

  ‘Tina?’ Swift said.

  ‘Shaun was in bed with me when that poor woman was killed,’ Tina said.

  ‘And you’re sure about that?’

  ‘Yeah. I’ve thought about it a lot,’ Tina said. ‘That morning, how things were. And I’ll swear on the Bible that Shaun was snoring his head off beside me around six that morning, because he woke me up and I couldn’t get back to sleep. He’s been in the pub drinking most nights after his gran died, he was that upset. And drinking always makes him snore. I got heartily sick of it to tell the truth.’ She stopped and gave a sigh.

  Georgie glanced at Swift. ‘Top that,’ she said, ‘for something that smacks of the truth. And I’ve got it all on tape.’

  ‘Yes, I’m aware,’ he said, glancing at the small bulge in the pocket of her jacket.

  ‘So! I think we’ve proved our point,’ Georgie said. ‘And it’s high time you let justice take its course and released Shaun Busfield.’

  ‘Yeah, let him go, please!’ Tina was suddenly overcome, tears spilling over her lashes. Poor Shaun; she hadn’t stood by him like she should have. She’d been blown about by her doubts, thinking it might be good to be as free as the air and manage on her own without having to rely on a bloke. It just showed how much she knew about herself.

  ‘We demand that you release an innocent man,’ Georgie said, planning to write verbatim whatever response the DCI managed to come up with.

 

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